New Mombasa: Days of Infamy
by Mech610
Summary: The tale of Delta Company of the 131st Infantry Division during the trials and tribulations that was the Battle of New Mombasa.
1. Chapter 1: Zero Hour

1New Mombasa: Days of Infamy

Chapter 1: Zero Hour

Military Calender; 2552.8.15

Kenya, East Africa Protectorate

Tsavo County

The sun was slowly rising over the African Savanna, and all was peaceful, at least...It appeared that way. The sun was bright as it always was in the late summer and the various animals were already coming out of their dens and homes, getting ready for the day ahead, but no one could have suspected what this day held. The same was true for the men of the 131st Infantry Division. They made their home in an underground base, out on the Savanna. The entrance to this five floored base looked like a simple bunker, sitting out on the plains. As the sun rose, it was clear to see that just within the entrance of this bunker, a young Caucasian man sat, only about 23 years old, his chair angled back against the wall, his eyes shut and gentle breaths were being drawn from his open mouth. Laying next to his seat was his helmet, it seems it had fallen off his blond head during the night. If his eyes had been open, he would have been able to see the majestic Mount Kilimanjaro, right before his eyes and at the break of dawn. The name etched into the back of the helmet indicated that this young Marine was called 'Cp. Class. Jefferson'. The table which his feet rested on had a small green radio, which seemed to be humming softly with radio interference.

It wasn't long before Corporal Jefferson was joined by yet another Marine. This one was roughly 6 feet tall, Black, and had a strong build. His armor was similar to Jefferson's in that it looked like a green, camouflaged jumpsuit with a brown metal chest plate, metal shoulder pads and knee pads and like his fellow soldier, he wore no helmet. He had a standard issue Assault Rifle slung over his back, and a pistol was strapped to his right thigh. Jefferson had a long barreled sniper rifle resting against the wall next to him, it was obvious what his job was, security. The African American Marine walked up to Jefferson and couldn't help but put his hands on his hips and sigh in an obviously annoyed tone. He reached out his hand and pushed Jefferson's shoulder saying, "Hey..." There was no response except for a snort from Jefferson, and so his human alarm clock pushed him again, harder this time saying, "Hey, Jason. Wake the fuck up man...Your shift is over." Jefferson, or as we now know him as Jason stirred ever so lightly again, and so his visitor finally got fed up, sighing once more, the Marine slowly kneeled down and with little to no effort tipped the chair that Jason was sleeping soundly in, causing the once resting Jason to tumble to the floor with a yell and a crash.

Scrambling to his feet instantly, Jason yelled out to his fellow Marine, "MANNY! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU MAN?! I was sleeping here!"

This other Marine, named Corporal Manny Paterson replied, "Yeah well, why don't you try it in your own bunk for a change? Your shift is over Jason, it's my turn."

Jason reached up to ruffle his buzzed hair and sighed saying, "Morning already huh?" He looked around groggily and said, "Yeah alright...Have a good shift ma-" But he was interrupted by a voice crackling through the radio on the table. This voice was strange, it had a British accent, and sounded very calm, but it seemed to be being interfered with, as if it was being said through a poor connection. The voice said only three words, "Regret, Regret, Regret..." With the end of the broadcast, Manny and Jason cast their eyes to the radio and then to each other.

Manny looked at it in wonder and said, "What in the world was tha-" But he was cut off, but not by another voice, by the blaring roar of an alarm and a flashing red light from the ceiling.

This alarm was quickly followed by a female voice, clear as day this time, yelling out, "ALL MARINES AND U.N.S.C. PERSONNEL MOVE IMMEDIATELY TO THE COM CENTER, ON THE DOUBLE!" With that, the radio lay quiet. Manny and Jason needed only to look at each other once before rushing to the ladder which led down from the surface bunker and into the base itself.

The alarm continued to blare throughout and base as men and women, all in uniforms rushed for the Communication's Center.

When Manny and Jason arrived themselves, they found the room already packed to the brink with people, all straining to look over at a man in his mid to late 30's, dressed in the same type of armor as the rest of the soldiers here. His hair was brown and cut short in a buzz cut, a goatee and mustache adorned his face, as did a few scars and signs of age. This man was Colonel Patrick Kendall, judging from the silver Eagle holding an olive branch sown into the left shoulder of his uniform. The Com Center was a large square room, with roughly 25 large computer and television screens lining the walls. A small semi-circle enclosed the patch of floor where Colonel Kendall paced. This semi-circle was made up of tables with computers on them. At each console sat a person wearing a blue, green, yellow or red jumpsuit, depending on their rank and each was working vigorously at their machines. Kendall suddenly spoke saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, this morning, mere minutes ago, we received this message..." He pulled out a remote and pointed it at the largest monitor, which was placed directly behind him. From it, the same voice as before called out, "Regret, Regret, Regret..."

When it had ended, Colonel Kendall spoke again saying, "This same voice was heard from every computer, radio, television and any other sound system within the radius of five hundred miles. But it doesn't end here..." He held up the remote again and pressed a different button, this time, on the screen, what looked like a radar image appeared. In the bottom right corner of the screen was part of a giant circle, quite obviously Earth, and from the left side of the screen a box filled with small computerized images of 15 space ships appeared, moving towards Earth and a group of what appeared to be space stations which were in orbit. Kendall froze the image when a group of human space ships appeared from the mass of space stations and headed for the opposing force. He spoke again with his calm voice, "This morning, just before dawn, a fleet of fifteen Covenant Carriers exited Slipspace, not far from our MAC Gun Orbital Platform Defense Grid. Immediately, Fleet Admiral Harper took twenty of our own battle cruisers to face them. However, somehow the Covenant Fleet was able to slip past them. The Covenant apparently were able to get aboard three of the MAC Gun Platforms, the Athens, Malta and Cairo stations and plant bombs. We lost both the Athens and the Malta, however, Spartan 117, the Master Chief is able to organize an effective resistance on the Cairo, reports are coming in that they are fighting to track down the Covenant bomb and disarm it. I wish this was the begining of good news, but it's not." His face went rigid and cold as he said, "A few moments ago we received word from Admiral Lord Hood, that a Covenant Carrier has been able to slip through the battle and is currently on it's way to take up a position above the city of New Mombasa. We are out of options everyone. The Covenant have located our homeworld, and a fight on the ground is about to start. As such, we are leaving the base and heading to New Mombasa to join in the resistance. This is it ladies and gentlemen, this is zero hour, the Battle of New Mombasa is about to begin. That is all, prep yourselves from transport, I want everyone mounted up in a Pelican within the half-hour. Good luck."

With that, he turned to his back on the soldiers who now began scrambling through the room, heading for the armory and their own bunks to prepare to leave. This base had little importance other than to defend New Mombasa and finally...They were getting work.

Next Chapter: Delta Company


	2. Chapter 2: Delta Company

1It wasn't long before the forces were loaded into Pelicans and on their way to the distant city of New Mombasa, it's gargantuan Space Elevator rising into the sky. Already, a large Covenant Carrier was sitting, hovering over the city. There were at least 25 Pelican Dropships flying over the African Savanna this day, but one in particular was the most interesting. Carved into the side in large bold letters were the words 'Delta Company' and these, are the heroes of our happy little tale.

Inside of this ship were about 13 men and women wearing armor, 6 on either side of the ship sitting on metallic benches. Sitting in one seat just next to the door that led to the cockpit was one last man. He was a handsome young Caucasian man, a small computer screen was hanging off his helmet, just over his right eye, and he had an Assault Rifle between his legs. His eyes were brown in color, with a bit of five o'clock shadow around his mouth and under his nose. His hair was brown and short too, but you couldn't see that due to his helmet. On his left shoulder was two silver bars going up and down next to each other, indicating that he was a Captain. According to his dog tags which hung off his neck and over his body armor, his name was Owen Forester. He had a dull expression on his face as he watched the scene fly by behind them. All of a sudden however, he called out saying, "Alright boys and girls, when we land, our first job is to secure the landing site and then, we must immediately carve our way through the Covenant Ground Forces to the base of the Carrier's Gravity Lift. Once there, our mission is to make our way inside the ship and take it out, but that's not all. Our secondary objective is to capture the Prophet of Regret, who, I am being informed, is on board that carrier. This is the one place on Earth that the Covenant decided to attack, and that Prophet is going to tell us why!"

His squad let out a resounding, "HOORAH!" And then sat quietly, loading their weapons and prepping their helmets and armor for the coming battle.

However, this eager nature was short lived, as suddenly, from some sort of Anti-Air Turret below, green plasma bolts flew by the Pelican. Suddenly, with one good shot, the wing of the Dropship was blown clean off. As it began to drop down towards the slums which covered the edges of the city in flames, the female voice of the pilot suddenly called out, "EVERYONE BRACE FOR IMPACT! WE'VE BEEN HIT! WE'RE GOING DOWN!" But it was too late, with a loud crash the Pelican hit the roof of a building and flipped clean over, smashing into the slums below, as Plasma Bolts continued to riddle the sky, aiming for the other Pelicans, Captain Forester, whited out.

When he awoke mere moments later, he found himself hanging by his seatbelt in his chair, his helmet had fallen off and a male voice with a Hispanic accent was saying, "Captain Forester? Are you alright, come on sir give me some vitals."

Owen's eyes slowly opened as he said, "Did anyone get the number on that truck?" He reached up and pressed the button for his seat belt, causing him to fall to the overturned ceiling of the Pelican. After pulling himself to his feet and grabbing his helmet, he looked around, revealing to his eyes that most, save for three soldiers were dead from the crash, all hanging from their seats in rather twisted or mangled positions. Owen sighed and hit the side of his helmet to make sure it was working, he picked up his assault rifle and looked at the three soldiers who stood before him saying, "Whose left? Corporal Hernando Garcia, First Lieutenant Rachael O'Mally, and Corporal Manny Paterson...Well, it's better than nothing. Garcia, do you have your medical equipment?" He said looking over at the 19 year old Hispanic medic in front of him.

Hernando nodded and lifted up a white, plastic box with a large red cross in the center and said, "Right here sir. Anything hurting?"

Owen waved his hand and said, "No Garcia I'm fine. Rachael, you alright? Everything where it should be?" He asked looking towards the young woman with flaming red hair and freckles and the same armor as the rest of them except for the long antenna sprouting from the communications device on her back

She held a Battle Rifle in her arms but removed her right one to salute for a moment and said in an Irish accent, "Everything's in place sir, no harm done."

Owen nodded and finally turned to Manny who had a Sniper Rifle strapped to his back and an Assault Rifle in his arms and said, "What about you Paterson, fit for combat?"

Manny saluted as well and said, "Fit and ready sir, it'll take more than that to kill me sir."

With that, Owen nodded and stepped out of the Pelican and into the hazy light of morning and said, "Alright, looks like we went to ground a bit too early, but those AA Guns can't be too far from here. If we let them stay, they'll tear any reinforcements the UNSC tries to send to pieces...We have to hunt them down and take them out, then proceed directly to the rondevou point...Grab whatever equipment and ammunition you can carry. O'Mally, grab a rocket launcher, and let's get a move on. We've got to take them out, with or without orders. MOVE OUT DELTA COMPANY!" With that his severely diminished squad ran out of the Pelican and began picking up the various pieces of equipment which had fallen out of the ship. Rachael did as she was told and lifted up a large Rocket Launcher and strapped it, with two brown boxes of ammunition to her back, causing her to look rather humorous for being such a small woman and having so many things on and ran after her captain.

Next Chapter: Affirmation


	3. Chapter 3: Affirmation

1As Delta Company ran through the streets of the New Mombasa slums, they hid behind walls each time they came to a corner. During one such time, they found themselves at the entrance to an alley. Owen suddenly whispered to his group, "Hold position...Let me check it out..." With that, he peeked his head out from behind the wall ever so slightly, to find that in the alley were 6 figures. Four of them were short, only about 3 feet tall with large metallic fin-like apparatuses coming from their backs, these were Grunts. The other two were about 4 feet tall, with bird-like legs and arms, heads that resemble those of Velociraptors and large, blue energy shields on one arm. Just past them, a large courtyard or some other open space could be seen, as could the imposing forms of three Wraith hover tanks, with large laser turrets instead of their usual Plasma Mortars attached to the top of them, obviously, these were the Anti-Aircraft batteries that were responsible for the severely reduced numbers of Delta Company.

Owen turned back to his squad saying, "Alright, here's the plan...Hernando, Manny, your going to charge in down this alley and will take out the infantry, Rachael and myself are going to get on one of these rooftops and set up there, understand? Once the alley is clear, Manny, I want you to take cover and stick to your sniper rifle. Take out anyone who looks like their getting a little too close understand? Alright Deltas...MOVE!" With that, Owen ran for the door of the building that they were resting up against.

With a resounding, "Roger sir!" The rest of Delta Company ran off to do their respective jobs.

It was mere seconds before you could hear the sounds of gunfire from the alleyway below, meanwhile, Rachael and Owen found themselves in a staircase which seemed to spiral up the inside of the apartment building. Suddenly, running down from the top, was a group of Grunts. Owen and Rachael simultaneously lifted their Assault Rifles and began firing, of course this only succeeded in getting the attention of the now dead Grunt's allies. Upon reaching the top of the staircase and the door which led out onto the roof, the pair were met by the tall form of a Covenant Elite. Seven feet tall, with reptilian eyes and a split mouth which opened in four directions, this Blue Armor Elite was a sight to behold. It let out a loud roar at the pair and suddenly charged them, wielding a Plasma Rifle, but in these close quarters it decided it would be wiser to simply bash Owen and Rachael to death.

Owen yelled out, "GET BACK!" And shoved Rachael out of the way, turning around just in time to lift his Assault Rifle and block the Plasma Rifle from bashing his brains out of his skull.

The Elite's snarling and drooling mouth was mere inches from Owen's face as the beast suddenly spoke out saying, "It is the will of the Prophets that your species should perish human!"

Owen grunted, struggling to keep his grip on his Assault Rifle as he said, "Yeah...I've heard that one before..." Suddenly, and unbeknowingst to the Elite, Owen had reached down to a holster strapped to his leg and pulled out what appeared to be a hunting knife, lifting it up quickly, he shoved the knife into the side of the Elite's neck, with enough force to instantly shatter it's plasma shielding.

The Elite let out a roar of agony and stumbled backward, bashing the door open with it's own body as it reached up and tried to yank the knife from it's leathery skin.

Owen used this as his chance and took aim and fired half a clip of Assault Rifle Rounds into the Elite's body. With a groan, the alien fell to the ground, dead.

Owen reached down and pulled his knife from the Elite's throat, and thats when he saw it, the dead body of a Marine, hanging onto a large dark green crate with "Ordinance" written in large white letters on the top, clearly this Marine was going for this ordinance when he was killed.

Owen turned to Rachael and said, "Start firing, I have an idea..."

Rachael who was still in mild shock from the experience just moments ago, but was battle-worn enough not to have panicked by it, spotted the crate and said, "Gonna bring the rain sir?"

Owen couldn't help but smirk and said to his old friend from Basic in his most casual voice, "Thats right babe...I'm gonna bring the rain." He ran to the crate and pulled it open, and sure enough, inside of it was the large, black and white, oversized rocket launcher form of a Portable Missile Turret. Owen grabbed the weapon and carried it to the edge of the building where Rachael was already firing rocket after rocket at the Anti-Aircraft Wraiths below.

As he began to set up the weapon he said, "This is gonna take about 5 minutes to set up, and so..." He reached for a small white and orange orb which was strapped to his hip and lifted it in the air, pressing a button on the side, he threw it to his feet, causing a huge form of a bubble shield to surround him and Rachael, who had learned to stick just the barrel of the Rocket Launcher through the protective shielding, thus allowing her to be basically invincible and still able to fight.

Once they had cover, Owen got to work setting up the Missile Turret. Starting with the stand, he unfolded it and then set the launcher itself on the stand, fixing all the knobs and latches so the weapon would stay in place, he finally loaded the ordinance.

Reaching down he said, "Alright, we're about to lose our cover. 3...2...1!" He grabbed the Bubble Shield and turned it off again, getting behind the Missile Turret, he began firing it wildly into the air.

At least 50 missiles flew into the air, made a large arch and flew straight down, 80 of them collided with the Anti-Aircraft Wraiths and it was mere minutes before each and every one of them were hulks of metal rubble, blue flames spewing from what was left of them.

Owen stepped back from the now spent Missile Turret and turned to Rachael, whose rocket launcher was now laying on the ground, smoke issuing from the barrel and said, "Well...That was fun...Let's get back to Garcia and Paterson." With that, the pair turned and ran for the steps which they had used to climb the building, but not before Rachael grabbed the dead Elite's Plasma Rifle to replace her spent Rocket Launcher.

It wasn't long before the two returned to Hernando and Manny, who were busy scouring the corpses of the Covenant soldiers for supplies and grenades and ensuring that they were all dead.

Owen approached Manny and said, "Corporal...How are our dear friends? Sleeping peacefully?"

Manny saluted his Captain and said, "All tucked in nice and tight sir..."

Owen was about to praise his Corporal when he suddenly heard the voice of Rachael call out, "SIR! YOUR GONNA WANT TO COME AND SEE THIS!" Looking in the direction of her voice, Owen, Manny and Hernando quickly ran towards her, only to find her standing over something shivering, her Assault Rifle aimed for it.

Cowering low to the ground, was the orange and dark blue form of a Grunt, it's arms folded over it's little head, a Plasma Pistol in hand, it was shivering violently.

As the four soldiers aimed their weapons at the Grunt, Owen finally said, "Well guys...Looks like we just got the first prisoner of the Battle of New Mombasa..."

Next Chapter: P.O.W. Uv'Grosh


End file.
